


Wrong Side Of Heaven, Righteous Side Of Hell

by Truthwritaslies



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Hallucinations, Obsessive Behavior, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:17:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4585725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truthwritaslies/pseuds/Truthwritaslies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some odds and ends about how Bucky, Sam and Steve experience their PTSD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong Side Of Heaven, Righteous Side Of Hell

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Wrong Side Of Heaven by 5FDP, which is also where the title is from. I own neither the song nor the commercially recognized characters herein and make no profit off either.

Sometimes Bucky thinks that maybe he should go back to the freezer. At least there he didn't dream. Now he dreams too much. Even with his eyes open the dreams play on: memories brought out by the shade of a woman's hair, the curve of a man's smile, the sound of a child's screaming laughter. 

Sometimes it's not even something as easy to figure out as similarities to victims he only remembers in spits and spurts, in blood-stained splashes of adreneline-fed horrors. Sometimes it's a sound, not even vaguely reminiscent of anything he can place in the scene that blocks his sight. Sometimes a scent, delicate and delicious that has him vomiting and terrified, hiding his face from their leering stares. 

Sometimes he flexes his arm and daydreams about gouging out his own eyes; but the dreams aren't really what he is seeing and in the darkness they'd be all he has left.

 

Just one more. That's always been Sam's creed, his war-cry. 

“Just one more!” he'd said to Riley; ignoring the danger, the warnings he'd been given as he swooped down again. He hadn't known the cost of that just one more. He hadn't seen the incoming until it was too late for the warning he'd shouted. 

Now it's almost a geas, to reach out for the one who is lost or on the way there, because maybe this time just one more will be just enough to make the guilt fade a little. Maybe Just one more will make the sadness unclench in his chest. Maybe this just one more will be the one to keep him asleep instead of standing sentry over the ghost of someone long gone. 

 

It's the apathy that hurts the most. Steve's hated bullies so much, his whole life he's fought against the oppressive and cruel but now it's so much more insidious. There's hardly anyone that you can point to and say “this is a bad one”. Evil's real face is hidden behind slippery words and poisoned sugar-cube smiles. 

No one shouts slurs from across the street unless they know for sure that the people around them will support it. Instead it's a politely slammed door in the face of a qualified person. You can't punch an insinuation and somehow it's harder to care when there is no one to take his anger out on. 

He wonders if Bucky, the one from before the fall (either of them), would have been able to pick the ringleaders out for him. 

Steve finds it hard to care that he hasn't had his morning run. He'd hate eating if he had the strength to give a damn: it's all by rote anyway, tasteless things that he spends hours shoving down his piehole as he gazes sightlessly off into the distance. Responsibility is the only thing that keeps him eating. He climbs in the shower by habit then stands there just letting the water slough what it can off him as his mind wanders. Some days clothes are too much effort. Some days he just cannot bring himself to leave his bed for more than a few moments. 

Most days it's only when Natasha shows up that he even bothers to pretend he was doing something instead of staring out the window, drawing pad forgotten where it had slipped from his lax hands to the floor.


End file.
